Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
All signs were pointing to Dr. Bellingham—and now, quite possibly, his patient, Savilla Finch. I needed to let the sheriff know what we’d found, but I wanted to do it carefully so as not to unintentionally point any fingers in the direction of Aunt DeeDee.
After arriving back at the main part of the property, I tried to think like the sheriff, if that was even possible, as I cooled down the horses and settled them in their stalls, while Lacy stepped away to call the hospital.
I didn’t have long to consider because a few minutes later, as I was filling the water trough, Sheriff Strong walked into the stables.
My first reaction to his presence was to wonder if he’d been tracking me, if somehow he knew where I’d been.
“How are you?” His expression was open, genuinely concerned.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Did Lacy tell you what we found?”
“The honey? Yes, she briefly mentioned it when I saw her just now.” He hesitated as if weighing his next words carefully. “But I wanted to check on you too.”
“You need another official statement?”
“No,” he breathed, frustration evident. “I have to do my job, but I also… I care.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to read what he actually meant. “Aubergine will come around. They just need some time to adjust to an outsider.”
“All that’s fine, but I meant… I care about you.”
“Me?” I looked at Polly to see if she had any insights into Sheriff Grinch’s heart growing two sizes.
“Yesterday, you seemed”—he tried to find the words—“overcome.”
In that moment I knew I had a choice: risk vulnerability, or keep on the same trajectory I’d taken for the past year or so.
I almost told him I was good and he should mind his own beeswax, like I was in middle school, but something about his wide eyes and something about being in an event that I’d assumed was all about selfishness and superficiality—but was actually more about camaraderie and community—made me reconsider.
“My mom died last year. Cancer,” I said bluntly, too tired to couch my words. I took a deep breath and leaned against Polly. “She wanted me to compete, so I’m here. But seeing Mr. Finch, lifeless…”
“It took you back,” the sheriff said softly.
“I have no idea why. He and Momma were nothing alike.”
“Grief doesn’t follow a neat trajectory, doesn’t always make sense.” He gazed into my eyes and those deep wells called to me.
“Have you lost someone?” I asked before I could change my mind.
His lip twitched as if he wasn’t used to such direct questions. Giving them, yes, but not receiving them. Still, he answered.
“My dad. He was in the force where I grew up in New Jersey. We moved to Virginia after he retired.”
“Very different kind of police work down here, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah.” He gave a hint of a smile. “He was older when I was born, about to quit working, so I grew up with him at every basketball game, every campout. He would tell stories of his time in uniform and I ate them up; he was the superhero I wanted to be. I lost him five years ago. It’s gotten better—the missing—but I’d give anything to hear his stories one more time. ”
Momma would tell the best stories about her patients, about the funny things they’d said even in the dark moments. She’d made the families come alive in vivid detail, so I knew what he meant.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to say yesterday but somehow couldn’t.”
“But you didn’t know about my mom yesterday.”
“I could see you’d lost someone.”
So, he was perceptive, compassionate, and sexy. Good Lord, I had no chance at hating this man.
He took a step back and resumed his more official stance. “Lacy was hurrying away. Anything I should know about? Like, exactly where you two have been all morning?”
“I didn’t know Big Brother was watching,” I teased him, turning away to brush down Polly.
“Not watching.” He leaned his forearms against the wooden half-door and bent forward to stroke Polly’s nose. She nuzzled against him, which signaled that he might be a good person after all. Horses can often read people better than lie detectors. “I’m just curious.”
“You know what they say,” I started. “Curiosity killed the—”
“—the sheriff?” Sheriff Strong finished. “That’s rather insensitive, Miss Green.” His tone was lighter than I expected, almost as if we were old friends.
“Probably too soon to joke about killing anyone,” I said, giving him a pointed look.
“Fair,” he conceded. “I mentioned this to Lacy, but the hospital called a few minutes ago. Mrs. Finch is conscious. She told the doctor that she passed out after drinking a smidge of whiskey. She’d mixed it with honey.”
I paused mid-brush. Then my suspicions were correct. Someone had known the honey was toxic and intentionally put it in the Finches’ cabinets, waiting for one—or both—of them to consume it.
“Lacy and I found some of that honey at the back of the property. It was poisonous—and, remember, I’ve seen her definition of a ‘smidge.’ It’s enough to off a horse.”
“The doctor says she’ll be okay, that there wasn’t enough of whatever was in her system to do permanent damage—just to make her lose consciousness and feel terrible. She might even be back in time for the show tomorrow night.”
“The show is still happening?” I asked. Despite the fact that my priority had to be clearing my aunt’s name, I knew I also desperately needed to place in this pageant.
“The show must go on.” The sheriff scratched at the back of his neck.
“As soon as she regained consciousness, Mrs. Finch insisted that everything would continue, and since it won’t interfere with the investigation, I’ll allow it, though we will have more security this weekend.
She insisted that the pageant has never shut down before—not during World War II, financial collapses, or COVID.
She said it’s what her husband would’ve wanted. ”
I thought about that response. It sounded like those words could carry two disparate meanings: either she didn’t care much that her husband had died, or she really wanted to honor her husband’s love for the pageant. I wasn’t sure which I believed, but I was leaning toward the former.
“You said this is your first show?”
I nodded, dragging a brush gently along Polly’s back.
“You seem like a natural,” he said without condescension or sarcasm. “You’re poised, and the judges—as well as some of the other contestants—seem impressed.”
I peeked over Polly to check his expression, and he caught me looking at him.
“I’m complimenting you, Miss Green.”
“You sure you don’t want to make some snide remark about how all pageant contestants are blond bimbos?” I asked, realizing that this was close to what I’d been thinking until this week.
“You’re neither blond nor a bimbo,” the sheriff said evenly. “In fact, I’m hoping that you’ll continue to share with me anything important that you find about Mr. Finch or his murder.”
“And why would I do that?” I asked, my head tilted.
He cleared his throat and considered how to best answer the question. “I think that our interests are more aligned than you realize. I want to find evidence pertaining to Mr. Finch’s murderer, and you want the same.”
“Though for different reasons.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, kicking the toe of his boot into the ground. “But as an act of goodwill, I thought I’d tell you that I received the coroner’s report this morning.”
That caught my attention.
“It appears as if Mr. Finch died sometime after midnight last night.”
After midnight… that was what I’d expected—and well after Aunt DeeDee had been taken into custody. A thrill went through me. “Does that mean my aunt’s in the clear?”
He put out a hand. “For the direct cause of death, yes, but she still stole a crown.”
“Allegedly,” I said. “Anyone could’ve put that in her room.”
“True. Allegedly.” His brow furrowed. “The coroner also determined Mr. Finch’s cause of death. A blow to the head through the right eye socket.”
It’s what I would’ve guessed, what with the missing eyeball and the stream of blood down one side of his body.
“Any idea what the weapon might’ve been?” I asked, as I put a blanket over Polly’s back and then moved to Ginger’s stall.
“It was a pointed object. Not sharp like a knife. Something blunt.” The sheriff skirted out of my way and cocked his head. “The strange thing is that they found traces of mud and grass at the site of the wound.”
I hit the toe of my own boot against the ground a few times before an idea came to me. “How long do they think the object may have been?”
“Four to six inches.”
“Could it have been a shoe? Like a high heel or a stiletto? Something pointy, four to six inches in length, that would be in contact with mud and grass on the regular out here.”
He considered the possibility. “That’s a decent guess.”
“Which means the murderer would likely be a woman, right?” Savilla’s face came to mind again. So too did the gold heels she’d shown off on our first meeting, and the champagne heels she’d been wearing yesterday. Open-toed heels caked with mud.
As if to remind me of the fact that he wouldn’t draw aimless conclusions, the sheriff stated, “Just because the murderer used a shoe as the weapon doesn’t mean it was a woman. Around here anyone can get their hands on a high heel.”
“Except the mud and grass indicate that this shoe was worn recently.” I thought about how Lacy treated her footwear like they were precious gems. She wore them, cleaned them, and displayed them like works of art in her closet.
“If the heel belonged to a contestant, it wouldn’t have had mud or grass on it—unless the woman had recently been out on the grounds and had no choice but to tromp through the dirt. ”
“Perhaps,” the sheriff conceded.
“So, what do we do?” I asked. “Check everyone’s shoes for mud and dirt—and blood?”
“Scouring closets probably isn’t the way to go. I can have forensics dig deeper, see if they can more closely identify a specific plant or type of soil, but that will take days if not weeks.”
“Well, you know it wasn’t me because I don’t even own a pair of heels.”
“Like I said, anyone around here can get their hands on a high heel,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners as a curl fell across his forehead.
I had to keep my hand from instinctively brushing it away, but in an instant, his brow furrowed as he refocused on the complexities of this case. “Now I’d like to figure out who did.”